Monday, 28 December 2015

I hope you had a lovely Christmas! Today I am lumping all my '12 Tags' creations together in a collage. It feels slightly creative without having to move too far from the mince pies. Hopefully normal crafty service will resume soon... April x

Everything here is very snippety. The tag was recycled from my daughter's Secret Santa at school and the stars were cut from a bag. I coloured the ribbon with Distress Stains - Crushed Olive, Festive Berries and Old Paper.

I would like to send it over to Di and Parsnip at Pixie's Snippets Playground for my last festive entry of the year. Thank you Di for all your hard work and kindness in running such a fab challenge blog!

Wednesday, 23 December 2015

My final tag of the day! Made for Week 10 of The Funkie Junkie's 12 Tags of Christmas, which is sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique. Such a stunning original tag by Linda! I have used the white and gold colour scheme, but my snowflakes are embossed on a tag that I first covered with gesso and gold embossing paste. I have rubbed a gold Gelato on the raised design. It reminds me of a plastered wall! I used the SU embossing folder, Northern Flurry and I've added a wooden snowflake embellishment. The end is nearly in sight! April x

I'm running out of tag titles! Seriously, desperate times call for even more desperate measures - blogging more than once a day! I really need to get ahead with The Funkie Junkie's 12 Tags of Christmas, which is sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique, or there is a good chance I will be fitting tag making around cooking the turkey!

This tag is inspired by Linda's lovely tag for Week 5. I was inspired by the background, the colours and of course, the tree. I started off by colouring my tag with a mixture of Soft Sky and Pool Party. I then spattered the tag with water and stamped the snowflakes in Smoky Slate. The tree was stamped in Versamark and heat embossed with SU's pewter embossing powder. Depth was added with a Gelato and highlights with a white chalk marker. Both the tree and snowflakes are from Gossamer Blue's Get Happy and the sentiment is from SU's Endless Wishes.

There may be yet another blog post...At least it is distracting me from eating my own body weight in mince pies!

I was inspired by the texture, colour scheme and snowflakes of Linda's lovely tag. My background was made by combining gesso with Cosmic Shimmer texture paste. When it was dry I applied a mixture of Distress Stains - Tumbled Glass, Mermaid Lagoon and Blue Print. The Joy sentiment was cut with my Silhouette and coloured with a metallic marker. Some glittery snowflake and rhinestones were added to complete the tag!

Of course I am sending all this glitter over to Parsnip who is doing a very good job as Christmas waiter over at Pixie's Snippets Playground. Thank you, Di for the beautiful card! April x

My tag is inspired by Linda's beautiful example for Week 4. I have also included some plaid and a flower - in this case, a Prima flower. I did a bit of background stencilling using my Tim Holtz Burlap stencil and the foliage was glittered up with some Cosmic Shimmer texture paste. The vintage style sentiment is from Stampin' Up's Bells and Boughs and I made a rustic looking bow from linen thread.

This is my final entry of the week for Pixie's Snippets Playground - two weeks now x 3 entries (I know Parsnip! I'm polishing my halo with an anti-static thingy as I type!!)

I have also just found the Frilly and Funkie Challenge Blog (clearly I have been living under a stone!) and would like to enter my tag in the 'Tis the Season challenge.

Monday, 14 December 2015

Hello! Here is my next tag for The Funkie Junkie's 12 Tags of Christmas challenge, sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique. The inspiration came from Linda's amazing tag for Week 6. I was inspired by lots of aspects of this tag! I have tried to replicate the newsprint effect, the green stencilling, the tree, foliage, everything really! I didn't have any corrugated card, so I used my scoreboard to make a concertina effect with a piece of patterned paper.

I'm pretty happy with how it all turned out. Continuing my rustic theme, here is a Christmas wreath I made at a great workshop this morning.

Sunday, 13 December 2015

I was inspired by the background of Linda's lovely tag and I used my Tim Holtz Holiday Knit stencil to create a similar effect. I stencilled on Kraft paper with white ink and then added lots of Cosmic Shimmer pearl spray. It glistens much more in real life! I also wanted to include a stag. He was cut using my Silhouette.

I seriously need to get a move on if I am going to complete this gorgeous challenge. I am enjoying trying!

I am also sending my festive stag to join the Nativity over at Pixie's Snippets Playground. Lovely Di very kindly chose one of my tags for her picks this week. Thank you Di and Parsnip!

Friday, 11 December 2015

LOVE this colour combo! You may remember from an earlier post that I was going to get a Silhouette Cameo back in October as a way of getting myself through the extraction of a tooth root. I had got myself in a right freaky state over the prospect of it and I thought a Silhouette would help! In the event, I felt a right fraud. I was in and out in less than fifteen minutes, never felt a thing and had no pain or swelling afterwards (lucky I know!) So, the Sihouette became an early Christmas present instead, but I'm glad it's here now!

My card is for Funkie Junkie's 12 Tags of Christmas which is sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique. It is inspired by Linda's wonderful Week 2 tag. I have used her black and gold colour scheme and have also incorporated the rays and stars. The sentiment was cut using my Silhouette and I then embossed it with gold embossing powder. The ray stamp is from SU's Kinda Eclectic and I have added some Glimmer Paper stars and large black sequins. I backed it onto a Brushed Gold cardstock base. Hope you like it!

I'd also like to enter my card in the Cards in Envy Very Vintage challenge. I do think the rays and sentiment give my card a vintage vibe, even though I suppose it is also quite modern looking.

I'd also like to enter the Our Creative Corner challenge where the theme of the month is stars.

My best friend and crafting partner in crime, Sam, was often told by teachers at school, "too much glue, Sam!" For forty years now, messy craft incidents are referred to as "too much glue, Sam" moments. We continue to have many of them. One blob of embossing paste on the bathroom floor didn't seem too bad. Then I found another and then another...I cleaned them up, although the lino had taken on a sort of attractive gold gleam at this point. I pottered off. Then came the sudden realisation that a huge blob was stuck down the entire length of my carpet slipper. There were gold footprints all over the bathroom and there is a dried blob on the stair carpet (good job we need a new one, hey?) A glorious, gold 'too much glue, Sam' moment!!

I think I have been quite sensible in returning to Week 1 of Linda's challenge. I was inspired by her poinsettia and the technique of stencilling with embossing paste (my bathroom felt less inspired!) My poinsettia die came free with a magazine and it is fab! The background of the banner is a mixture of Cracked Pistachio Distress Stain and SU's Mossy Meadow. 99% of the embellishments are disguising a 'too much glue, Sam' incident, but nevertheless it is looking very pretty hanging off an antique mirror in the hall. The stress of it all has led me to the Christmas tin of rum soaked sultanas...

This is my last entry of the week for Pixie's Snippets Playground. I can't believe I have managed three! I am flicking a celebratory rum soaked sultana (or three) at Parsnip :-)

I started off by making my tag from Kraft card. I added die-cut letters and covered it all in gesso. I then sponged on stripes of Distress Stains - Festive Berries, Cracked Pistachio and Crushed Olive, which I spattered with water. The coffee cup, cut with a MFT die, is made from all kinds of left-over snippets and I used a piece of sandpaper to distress the chevron embossing. Finally, I coloured in the lettering with a metallic marker and rubbed Gelatos across - a mixture of Iced Chai and Iced Coffee.

This is also my second entry of the week for Pixie's Snippets Playground. My tag is seriously snippety and I reckon Di and Parsnip could do with a coffee!

Sunday, 6 December 2015

Am I bonkers starting a twelve week challenge when there's only a couple of weeks left? Yes, probably. There is a backstory though. I found Funkie Junkie's 12 Tags of Christmas weeks ago. Excitedly, I made a tag. I reached for the camera. Suddenly no tag...I looked everywhere, even behind radiators. I really think it's one of those things that will be found under the floorboards in fifty years time! Kept putting it on the backburner, but really can't resist all the beautiful inspiration on Linda's blog.

The challenge requirements can be found at The Funkie Junkie and it is sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique. So far so good! I hope I can finish all twelve festive projects in the time remaining. I'm going to try my best. At least you can link up in any order, so here I am starting very logically with Week 7!

I have changed the colour scheme, using SU's Blushing Bride and Sahara Sand inks for my stencilling and stamping. I was really inspired by the gorgeous layered snowflake on Linda's beautiful blue and silver tag, so I have made this the main feature on my tag too. My snowflakes were die-cut from a first tag that I wasn't happy with!

I loved making my tag and have started on the second one. You don't have to just do tags. There are all kinds of amazing Christmas cards and ornaments.

I would also like to send my tag to Di and Parsnip at Pixie's Snippets Playground because I know Parsnip will like the ribbon! It is also a small Christmas miracle that I am entering anything on the first day!!